Honestly, I can't say I have a fully rounded opinion on this game. This "review" is coming from the impressions of playing it for 15 minutes with a friend through SNES Online (which works great btw), so keep that in mind.

So okay- first impressions. This game is, I think, the game that has aged the WORST visually of any game I've ever played. The pseudo-3D effect created by Mode-7 barely adds anything to the experience, instead creating a scan line infested pop-in riddled mess that genuinely caused me physical pain in terms of nausea and headache. I know it was probably impressive for the time, but jesus hell it's awful now.

Also man I suck at this game. I'm pretty solid at Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but this game controls NOOOOTHING like the other games in the series. Not only are the gas and item buttons poorly placed on the controller, but there's NO brake or reverse, and the drift is so overly finicky that it's a nightmare to use. I know for a fact that if I played more I could come to grips better with the physics of everything, but from square one I just felt like I was playing on ice with a kart made of butter, and it was infuriating. I spent the entirety of 5 maps with 3 laps each in last place, being lapped by the bots and confused as shit.

That's really all, this game plays bad and looks worse. I dunno what more to say.

Has aged heinously from the awful controls and the ugly attempt at making the environment feel 3d, to the map taking up half the screen and the levels being so incredibly bland. We owe this game a fair amount but there's very little reason to play it now outside of historical curiosity or nostalgia.

I think it would be a pretty bad experience nowadays regardless, but it definitely doesn't help that the extremely creative level design in later entries makes this game look even more dull by contrast.

I wanted to like this game, seeing as it's the start of one of my favorite genres, and has a lot going for it in terms of charm. I love the soundtrack in this game and its unique sound (its version of Rainbow Road is my favorite), as well as the sprite work and general presentation of the game. I even kind of like the look of the Mode 7-as-hell tracks, for the most part. But man, this game is aggressive in how off-putting it is to anyone who's played a kart racer released after this one.

For one thing, driving is just really hard to get a handle of. I never felt like I fully understood my character's speed or turning ability or anything that would allow me to handle better. I tried different characters, but even after finishing several cups I could never really say I fully "got" this game's feel, which is totally different from any other kart racer I've played.

When I started playing at 150CC after unlocking it, I actually ended up getting a better handle of the driving though. The problem there is that most of these courses seem to be designed in such a way to be as abrasive and hard to read as possible. The way this game looks resulted in a lot of instances of not being able to see the walls on the ground and just bumping into them for three seconds straight. This game also really likes square-ass corners, which are almost always no fun for me. The latter half of the cups in general feature courses that demand so much out of controls that just aren't up to the task.

I'm not against the idea of a kart racer having difficult courses, some of my favorite ones involve really demanding courses near the end of the game that require both good adaptability to obstacles and some memorization for future laps. But where this game really falls apart is the A.I. This is the game that supports every argument about kart racer single player being bad because of cheating A.I, it's actually unhinged in this game. If you're racing against Mario and Luigi, they can just activate a star whenever they want, meaning if they're in first you won't be getting past them. In fact, every A.I has a special item they can just use whenever, and they will use it frequently on you specifically. They will almost never hit each other, in fact they can jump over nearly every thrown item on the course, which you can't do. I'm pretty sure I've seen them just go through some pipes on the course, though that just may be another byproduct of these Mode 7-ass courses. And of course, they rubberband like hell, especially the characters that have been chosen to be your "rival" for each cup, they will never not be right on your ass (and God help you if you picked a character that's Mario or Luigi's rival).

I could imagine multiplayer grand prix alleviating some of this, since you could share the suffering with someone else, but then I have to ask why play this game instead of any other. Unless you grew up with it, there really is no reason. Everything this game does has been greatly improved upon, and no kart racer since has reached this level of straight up bullshit. I don't want to outright say its a bad game because it is important and I'm sure people have fond memories of it, but man I was not ready for this to be as unpleasant as it is. If you want a kart racer similar to this in mechanics and style, I would recommend Konami Krazy Racers on the GBA as a much better alternative.